The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Robots are no longer only used in manufacturing. Increasingly, robots have found use in hospitality, medicine, and transportation of goods. Some robots, such as those designed and manufactured by Savioke, Inc. of San Jose, Calif., are wheeled machines that transport goods within a campus or other defined environment, such as a hotel or hospital. These robots are deployed by computer or human operators to complete a task, such as delivering hot towels to a guest room. Once deployed, a particular robot may navigate a building or set of buildings from its current location to its destination.
In order to navigate to its destination, the robot uses data defining a layout of the campus or environment. The data may be stored in the form of a digital map of a campus, building, or floor within a building. However, statically defining an environment has the significant drawback of requiring an update to data storage or memory of the robot when the environment changes as a result of construction, demolition, or changes in security or other operational policy. There is a need in the robotics field to digitally define an environment for robot operation through other than static means.